Prisoners’ attitudes towards participating in a restorative justice process

In the present study we conducted an empirical experiment to examine whether exposure to a victim awareness procedure would affect prisoners’ attitudes towards participating in restorative-justice process. Additionally, the study sought to evaluate whether there are differences between prisoners serving their sentences in prisons with different therapeutic orientations. The findings indicate that participants who were exposed to a victim awareness procedure were more aware of the harm caused to the victim and showed a higher level of positive attitudes towards participating in restorative-justice process than those who were not. Contrary to our hypothesis, no differences were found between the prisons.
Beyond the theoretical contribution, the present study also contributes on a practical level. The present study presents RJ as a tool that can be added to the punishment toolbox, and can help to achieve the practical goals of retributive justice along with additional goals that retributive justice has difficulty in achieving, such as redressing the harm caused, providing the possibility of healing contact between offender and victim, offering the offender an opportunity to apologize and answer questions that are troubling the victim, as well as creating contact between the offender and the community.